11.4 Personal Possessions

Every family should have an archive. The wall at Grandma’s house may be a great starting point but, wherever seems best, researchers should make an inventory of personal possessions and how much family history is held in the homes of family members. These items should be digitized, organized, and stored for the future. The “Memories” app produced by FamilySearch is a good tool for digitizing that comes with the added feature of uploading to FamilySearch Family Tree where documents, photographs, and audio files can be linked to family members.

Local libraries may have equipment to use for digitization at low or no cost. There are also companies like LEGACYBOX and imemories that offer digitization services. Although it is not a comprehensive list, the following items should be considered valuable and worthy of preservation efforts by family historians:

1. Photographs (candid, portraits, school, etc.)

2. Letters, invitations, postcards, greeting cards

3. Books (yearbooks, histories, directories, etc.)

4. Audio recordings (digital, cassettes, etc.)

5. Journals (personal, professional, scrapbooks, etc.)

6. Certificates (birth, marriage, death, awards, etc.)

7. Video recordings

8. Newspaper clippings (obituaries, articles, advertisements, etc.)

9. Slides, negatives, films, ultrasounds, x-rays, etc.